simplygnome Posted June 7, 2005 Report Share Posted June 7, 2005 Many on this board have read the issue of Identity Crisis which portrays Slade, AKA Deathstroke, taking on the JLA. There was even an earlier thread discussing a small writeup of him. One major factor that I see missing in most of the mini-writups was Slades overwhelming speed. Now, not his SPD per se, but the fact that he acted serval times in one round, as if he had several different Held Actions waiting for him. for a recap, heres what happens, as described in another thread by Bloodstone: In the order it happens, Dethstroke: - Takes out the Elongated Man with a gun or explosives of some kind - Sets off some explosives to control the Flashes most likely path of attack and then promptly runs the Flash through as he attempts a Move By along that path. - Nerve Strikes Zatanna so she can't speak. -Leaps into the air and cuts off Hawkman's OIF Thanagarian Flight harness, cutting him in the process and alowing gravity to do the rest. - Missile Deflects the only arrow fired by Green Arrow. Olie might have gotten off a second shot, had Slade not rendered all the rest of his arrows useless with one swipe of his sword. While this is happening, he hears Black Cannry inhale and her jaw click as she winds up for a Canary Cry so... - He does a flip, ties a plastic bag over her head before she can scream and hand cuffs her. Ollie is thus also taken out of the picture as he has to get the bafg off her head before she suffocates. - He then actully manages to see the Atom flying around in microscopic form so he shoots him with a laser pointer, which does knockback to him in that form. Ray instinctivly returns to normal size as he goes hurdling into Hawkman, who was just standing up form the previous fall. - Then he grabs Green Lantern's right hand, practically breaking it. Slade tries to exert his will over the ring, resulting in a battle of willpower between him and Kyle. It's his first real mistake, as Kyle resists long enough for the rest of the team to recover. Now what I see here is SEVERAL actions, not just done on different phases, but on the SAME phase. While one option is to say that Slade used the SWEEP maneuver (possibly with PSLs designed to conteract the -2, more than likely) it seems that it was all too well prepared for that. One option I have though of is that Slade, using 90% of his brain as he does, has several TRIGGERED manuevers, all possibly built with, say, Must have fought enemy perviously and prepared for this combat (-1). Possibly even some kind of EC based on combat tactics filled with nothing but TRIGGERED actions based specifially to take down a certain foe. Now I ask you herodom, am I complicating things? Was slade just merely sweeping and getting luck on his rolls? Mainly, WHAT allowed him, mechanics wise, to so precisely hit almost EVERY member of the JLA in one go...? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest darthvegita666 Posted June 7, 2005 Report Share Posted June 7, 2005 Re: Slade, time management, and you.... maybe he bought area effect selective strength and used his martial arts w/it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Desmarais Posted June 7, 2005 Report Share Posted June 7, 2005 Re: Slade, time management, and you.... One possible method. Buy a bunch of the character's abilities with the "Delayed Affect" advantage. Then, you just have to be ready. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haerandir Posted June 7, 2005 Report Share Posted June 7, 2005 Re: Slade, time management, and you.... I've toyed with this effect in the past. One thing I came up with that may be more trouble than it's worth: Duplication. With the right Limitations and Advantages, you can set it up as a sort of 'mental' Duplication, that would allow him to have several separate 'minds' working at once in one body. Obviously, he'd need to have the appropriate number of limbs free to complete any given maneuver, so he couldn't, for instance, pick a lock and hold on to someone in the same Segment. I'm at work, so I can't put together a full writeup of the power, but that's the direction I was tending in last time I was working on a Deathstroke clone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenzil Kim Posted June 7, 2005 Report Share Posted June 7, 2005 Re: Slade, time management, and you.... Maybe Slade IS JUST THAT GOOD I’ve seen Captain America and Spiderman do the exact same thing in comic book. They are all in some way physically enhanced but the only power I see in use is an enhanced Dex. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baneon Posted June 7, 2005 Report Share Posted June 7, 2005 Re: Slade, time management, and you.... I kind of prefer the advanced preperation/Triggered action idea better. Just seems cleaner for the effects generated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted June 7, 2005 Report Share Posted June 7, 2005 Re: Slade, time management, and you.... I would say that what you're describing could be modelled reasonably well mechanically through a combination of Sweep, Rapid Fire, Multiple Power Attacks, Surprise Move, Find Weakness, a hefty dose of CSLs, PSLs, Enhanced Perception and Lightning Reflexes, plus advance tactical planning and weapon preparation... all well within Slade Wilson's character concept. You might also consider giving him extra Skill Levels and/or SPD "Only For Anticipated Targets," reflecting his careful intelligence gathering on any foe he expects to encounter. Of course, the deadliest ability he displayed in this particular encounter was the dreaded "Writer's Fiat." The writer of this story wanted him to be able to do this, so he did it. Whether he was ever shown to be capable of such feats before, or ever will be again, is beside the point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haerandir Posted June 8, 2005 Report Share Posted June 8, 2005 Re: Slade, time management, and you.... OK, I've gotten home and played with the numbers in Hero Designer, and my advice is to just ignore what I said about Duplication earlier. It's MUCH too cheap for the effect it generates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nexus Posted June 8, 2005 Report Share Posted June 8, 2005 Re: Slade, time management, and you.... "Writer loves me" Cosmic Power Pool, no conscious control of what powers. Limited type of powers: Skill levels, Find Weakness, perception bonuses, etc. also 10d6 Luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaunclinton Posted June 8, 2005 Report Share Posted June 8, 2005 Re: Slade, time management, and you.... Okay, my take on this is below each section. I'm assuming Slade has far higher SPD than anyone else present except for the Flash. - Takes out the Elongated Man with a gun or explosives of some kind - Sets off some explosives to control the Flashes most likely path of attack and then promptly runs the Flash through as he attempts a Move By along that path. *** All set up beforehand. The explosives are on a trigger and probably have an extra phase continuing charge to force Flash to go around them. They detonate doing some damage to all the heroes as Slade blasts Elongated Man which starts the combat going into Segment 12. The sword attack is set on a trigger "when character runs to point X" so on Segment 12 Flash goes first and triggers the sword thrust. Slade makes a presence attack after skewering Flash, Slades excellent PRE combined with violent move, reputation, etc. leaves most people bereft of an action - Nerve Strikes Zatanna so she can't speak. -Leaps into the air and cuts off Hawkman's OIF Thanagarian Flight harness, cutting him in the process and alowing gravity to do the rest. *** Segment 2 and Slade uses his action to Sweep a Suppress/Dispel which covers "All Powers with an easily affected SFX he has studied or prepared for" on Zatanna's Magic VPP (it's voice based) and Hawkman's Harness (can be cut off) this probably has a linked damaging attack. This is probably a reasonable power for his Super Skills/Martial Arts VPP. - Missile Deflects the only arrow fired by Green Arrow. Olie might have gotten off a second shot, had Slade not rendered all the rest of his arrows useless with one swipe of his sword. While this is happening, he hears Black Cannry inhale and her jaw click as she winds up for a Canary Cry so... *** Assuming Ollie is probably SPD 6 he gets a shot off here at Slade, Champs rules break down a bit as Slade has went and can't missile deflect. Most likely what happens is he has Uncontrolled or something on it and manages to deflect the arrow. - He does a flip, ties a plastic bag over her head before she can scream and hand cuffs her. Ollie is thus also taken out of the picture as he has to get the bafg off her head before she suffocates. *** Segment 3 and everyone is about to kick in (Mostly SPD 5 I'd say) but Slade in the 8-10 SPD bracket goes first. He uses the same power as before to Sweep Green Arrow and Black Canary disabling both Arrow's Arrow Multipower and Canary's Sonic Scream... and Slade's player even had the deceny to invent a different SFX from the one he used to stop Zatanna speaking! Although his linked NND suffocation is a nasty one! - He then actully manages to see the Atom flying around in microscopic form so he shoots him with a laser pointer, which does knockback to him in that form. Ray instinctivly returns to normal size as he goes hurdling into Hawkman, who was just standing up form the previous fall. *** Still in segment 3 and Hawkman stands up as Atom leaps at Slade, who knew Atom always does this so he had an EB with his name set up to trigger as soon as it kicks off... it hit's Atom, stuns him (dropping his shrinking) and knocks him back into Hawkman putting both down. Kyle gets to act and boneheadedly decides to punch Slade, he misses (actually, Slade blocks, but that's just SFX - Then he grabs Green Lantern's right hand, practically breaking it. Slade tries to exert his will over the ring, resulting in a battle of willpower between him and Kyle. It's his first real mistake, as Kyle resists long enough for the rest of the team to recover. *** Segment 4 Ollie attends to Canary, if you've a SPD 9 or 10 Slade he uses this segment, if your Slade is SPD 8 he waits till Segment 5 to grab Kyles hand and tries his Suppress/Dispel on the Ring. Big mistake as it's got far too many AP's and Slade is left standing around whilst everyone else rallies together and recovers. *** So pretty much he does all of the above with a Prepared Gadgets/Equipment VPP (for Gun/Explosives/Sword/Laser Pointer), the Suppress/Dispel I mentioned, a high PRE and ungodly DEX/SPD. Not too shabby all in all for the old boy. It's not really any more complicated than that in my opinion. What do you think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simplygnome Posted June 8, 2005 Author Report Share Posted June 8, 2005 Re: Slade, time management, and you.... Not a bad breakdown at all... It was those few "slips" in the rules (such as not having an action to missle deflect) that made me think of triggered, although I think there might still have been a few instances (such as with Atom, as you mentioned). Also, with Black Canary, does her Canary Scream have extra time on it so he would audibly know before hand about it, or do you think that would be more of a trigger (triggered to go off when he head the jaw *click*)? Good segment by segment however.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloodstone Posted June 8, 2005 Report Share Posted June 8, 2005 Re: Slade, time management, and you.... For the record, Slade did have some brief moment of monologuing in there too. For example, Elongated man rushes through a door and get's taken out. Slade says something bad ass from the shadows about hiring the best man for the job then steps forward, at which point the Flash goes to charge in and Slade, seeing/predicting this, sets off the explosives. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaunclinton Posted June 8, 2005 Report Share Posted June 8, 2005 Re: Slade, time management, and you.... Canary's jaw clicking is probably more SFX than anything I'd say... although, for someone with Slade's awesome tactical abilities a power much like this might be pretty damn effective... Super Tactical-Planning: Detect SPD/DEX, Discriminatory, Ranged, Rapid x10, Sense (20 Active Points, 20 Real Points) Which let's you know when all your enemies are about to act and who you should take out first, etc. So Slade knew Canary was just about to act and Sonic Scream him, so he disabled her. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MitchellS Posted June 8, 2005 Report Share Posted June 8, 2005 Re: Slade, time management, and you.... Not a bad breakdown at all... It was those few "slips" in the rules (such as not having an action to missle deflect) that made me think of triggered, although I think there might still have been a few instances (such as with Atom, as you mentioned). Also, with Black Canary, does her Canary Scream have extra time on it so he would audibly know before hand about it, or do you think that would be more of a trigger (triggered to go off when he head the jaw *click*)? Good segment by segment however.... My guess is the power is purchased with the incantation limitation. That's how he manages to stop her just by covering her face. The jaw sound was just the start of the incantation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest darthvegita666 Posted June 8, 2005 Report Share Posted June 8, 2005 Re: Slade, time management, and you.... flash should hae used his desolid and ran threw the explosions flash si the greaterst character ever Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloodstone Posted June 8, 2005 Report Share Posted June 8, 2005 Re: Slade, time management, and you.... Can Wally even perform that particular power stunt?I thought he has issues with doing the vibrate through solid matter thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iuz the Evil Posted June 8, 2005 Report Share Posted June 8, 2005 Re: Slade, time management, and you.... Hmmm... well, I'm going to go with the VPP "Writer's Fiat/Writer Loves Me" on this one. And definitely concur with 'whether Slade has ever been able to do this in the past or will be able to in the future is irrelevant'. Unless he's just been saving his XP for all those issues and is now ready to do a character 'reboot' for the new series he'll be taking part in... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaunclinton Posted June 8, 2005 Report Share Posted June 8, 2005 Re: Slade, time management, and you.... You know he's gonna be doing more of that stuff in Villains Unlimited. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herolover Posted June 8, 2005 Report Share Posted June 8, 2005 Re: Slade, time management, and you.... D&D, although a game I dislike, has taut me somethings. One of the things I really liked came out of a D&D DM's helper book called the "Book of Challenges." Basically what it said was that when your PCs are facing a villian with a great intelligence or tactics feel free to cheat. Cheat even if it is obvious. Maybe you, as the GM with the INT of 13, didn't plan on those three agents breaking in right then to confront the good guys or plan on a trap being right there, but the villain with the INT of 25 did. I will say this however, that this thread has given me a new respect for advantage trigger. Thinking about it now trigger is a great advantage for that villian that is expected the PCs at any moment Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest darthvegita666 Posted June 8, 2005 Report Share Posted June 8, 2005 Re: Slade, time management, and you.... Can Wally even perform that particular power stunt?I thought he has issues with doing the vibrate through solid matter thing. yeah he can do it it was a long time ago when he had problems and even then he just made things he went through explode Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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